Dr. René Brohm
René Brohm was born in 1971 in Amsterdam. After completing secondary school in 1989 he studied computer science at the University of Amsterdam. From his first year on, he pursued a wide variety of courses in philosophy, comparitive religion, psychology, linguistics, maths (on a Masters level in the UK), and of course computer science. He specialized in the application of mathematical concepts for modeling techniques. His Masters thesis was on the modeling of a translation system using category theory, which he completed in 1995. He graduated cum laude.
René went to India to work in a refugee camp for the Tibetans that had fled the border between India and Tibet. There he taught English to a group of Tibetans that ranged in age from 17 to 28 years old. In 1995, René took a job as a software designer, applying his mathematical design techniques. The problems he encountered in this projects, and the problems that he saw at other projects taught him that modeling techniques and software methodologies were not enough to develop information technology. The crucial factor seemed to lie in how people collaborated and and the fact that hierarchical relations frustrated collaboration.
At the end of the year 1997, René started a Ph.D. in knowledge management, assuming that such a study could clarify the problems he had encountered in his job as software designer. His original approach was that of a typical engineer, but soon he found that phenomenological and hermeneutical approaches more promising. Unaware of any lurking postmodern crises and the complexity of the involved literature he dived in.
In 2000, he stopped his Ph.D. to work as a software manager in an IT-startup. He was intrigued by the initial enthousiastic spirit, but encountered the disastrous impact of rigid hierarchical relations on innovation. In 2001, the IT-startup went bankrupt, partly as a result from resulting dysfunctional relations, partly due to a decrease in national economy. In 2002 René obtained a position at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam as a lecturer, teaching on methodology and on the relation between information technology and organizations, finishing his Ph.D in 2005. In 2006 René became the coordinator for all methodology courses in the faculty of Business Administration. In this position he was responsible for increasing the coherence in the entire curriculum with a focus on methodology, linking subjects statistics, quantitative business analysis, methodology, and the philosophy of science. For this latter part he receives increasing acknowledgment.
Some Characteristic Publications
- Brohm,R. (2000) Kennis van Polanyi: een ander licht op het onderscheid tussen impliciete en expliciete kennis, Filosofie in Bedrijf, 12(1): 48-62
- Brohm, R. (2005). Polycentric Order in Organizations: a dialogue between Michael Polanyi and ITconsultants on knowledge, organization, and morality. Rotterdam: Erasmus University Rotterdam.
- Brohm, R. (2006). The emancipatory potential of the tacit dimension. Critical Perspectives on International Business, 2(3), 244 - 258.
- Brohm, R. (2007). Waar zijn de feiten? Sceptische beschouwingen over de fundamenten van de bedrijfskunde. In: C. Krijnen & B. Kee (eds.), Wetenschapsfilosofie voor economen en bedrijfskundigen: Een kritische inleiding. Dordrecht Kluwer Academic Publishers.
- Brohm, R. (2007). Bringing Polyani on the Theatre Stage. In J. F. Schreinemakers & T. M. v. Engers (Eds.), 15 Years Knowledge Management (Vol. III). Würzburg: Ergon Verlag. Opening Chapter!
- Accepted for Publication: Brohm, R. (2008). Where are the facts? Skeptical reflections on the fundaments of business studies. In C. Krijnen & B. Kee (Eds.), on the methodology of management research. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
